Reducing my Win32 GTK+ work to the status of "useless,
redundant, and irrellevant," someone has created a
whiz-bang, no-brainer compile script whilst I was banging my
head against a wall trying to figure out the steps. Some
days, it just doesn't pay. At least I got the learning
experience out of it (and a working MinGW).

Sheesh. I thought that compiling the latest and
greatest GTK+ on Windows
was a solved problem, accomplishable with little pain and
suffering.

Apparantly, this is simple for Hans Breuer and
tml, but they are using VC++. I was hoping
to do this with MinGW,
but either it's not quite baked or I'm still doing something
brain-dead with my setup, even after reading all the
README's
I can find.

So here's what I've got so far:

Compiling glib-1.3.6 with MinGW didn't
work.

Cross-compiling glib-1.3.6 under Cygwin didn't
work.

Compiling glib-1.3.6 as a native Cygwin module
didn't work

Getting latest from CVS and trying to build under Cygwin
doesn't work, because autogen.sh wants a newer
automake and because Cygwin doesn't ship with libtool.

At least the latest automake build cleanly for Cygwin.

However, libtool-1.4 fails all build checks, and some
searching on the Cygwin lists yields the observation that
libtool is Just Broken(tm) right now on Windows. But maybe
in a couple of months it will be OK. :(

bcully,
I think the argument for The Right To Keep and Bear
Arms(TRTKBA) is a bit more subtle than "we might need to
overthrow the government again" (not that the founders shied
away from that, having been successful revolutionaries
themselves).

As I understand it, the reason that TRTKBA is enshrined
in the Constitution is that it offends the dignity of a
free people to be kept disarmed. In other words, it's
a matter of liberty. Free men and women should be free to
publish, worship, and be armed as they will. If people
can't be trusted with force themselves, how in the world
will they be able to elect those to government who can use
force wisely?

As for nukes, a good explaination that I've seen is that
the intent behind the "keep and bear" shows a practical
limit. Citizens have a right to personal arms,
something that an individual person in their private live
might reasonably expect to wield and maintain. Handguns,
rifles, and katanas obviously pass this test. M1A1 Abrams
tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and tactical or stragetic nukes
obviously fail this test. And of course we can find gray
areas somewhere in between...

So cheer up. There's absolutely no way that the
Constitution protects large evil corporations
from becoming nuclear powers.</a>

More Thoughts

Why am I bothering arguing about TRTKBA when we have more
urgent issues? I finally stopped procrastinating and wrote
a dead trees letter to my congresscritter
about the current crop of human cloning bills about to hit
the floor of the House. Bottom line: I do not wish to live
in a Brave New World. It is even more of an affront to
human dignity and freedom to make persons into an industrial
byproduct than to deny them TRTKBA. I'm urging Rep. Rivers
to vote for the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 (H.R.
2505, the Weldon bill) and to defeat the Cloning Prohibition
Act of 2001 (H.R. 2608, the Greenwood bill). H.R. 2505
actually prohibits human cloning. H.R. 2608 allows the
creation of cloned human embryos, but forbids
allowing them to develop to term. In other words, "it's OK
to clone people as long as you kill the clones before they
get cute." It even goes to the trouble of forbidding states
to pass alternative legislation, so that it would also
mandate that all 50 states permit human embryo
cloning. This is monstrous, and I hope that
you all contact your congresscritters as well. This week.
Even if you don't agree about banning human cloning
entirely, at least urge them to defeat the Greenwood
"clone-and-kill" bill.

Telsa, there's something you need to
understand about the American experiment: the founders
intended to trust common people with dangerous things. This
includes presses, property, and yes, deadly weapons. While
this is (ahem) not entirely problem-free, I don't really see
that trusting the gov't. to have a monopoly on the use of
deadly force is problem-free either.

While it's not as common as it used to be, I remember
growing up in a rural area where it was assumed
that every household had at least one gun. Surprise: we
didn't run around shooting each other.

But I expect that's hard to understand if you haven't
seen it close up (which you wouldn't have on your side of
the Pond).

If guns are outlawed, only the
government will have guns.-- Edward
Abbey

New job is going well. It looks like I'm going to have
to become a Perl Guru sometime soon, though.

And I really need to get an ISP hookup to the new house.

I REALLY REALLY need to
sell the old house. Make
me an offer, it's nice.

Hacking:

Nonexistant. See above. :^(

Thoughts:

Depressed by a recent newspaper series about travel
packages to Cancun, other spots, targeted at high school
kids. Packages include huge alcohol allowances and
inducements to parties far wilder than I remember
from college. Somehow, I just can't see
encouraging binge drinking and irresponsible sexuality in 17
and 18 year olds as a good thing, and Nancy and I
wonder where the situation will be at this progression in
ten years when Josh gets close to that age. Very worrying
as a parent; I hope we haven't quite reached the "bread,
circuses, and orgies" stage of society by that time.

In process of buying a new house, now we just need to
close and move in the next two weeks(!!!). And get the new
job insurance stuff done in time to preregister Nancy before
the new baby gets here. Commuting >3hrs/day in the
meantime. :^(

Selling the
current house would be A Good Thing(tm). It's a nice
house, make an offer.

The hunt for a dream free software telecommute is over,
at least for now. Without success. :( I guess that's
what comes of being merely very good, instead of "we
must hire this person whatever it takes" good.

Instead, I'm moving back into a cubicle farm, this time
for Bell &
Howell in Ann Arbor. (It's not free software, but at
least it's Unix.) Which means I need to wrap up my current job, find a
house, sell our house, and move. Now. Ideally, to be
complete before early May and the new baby arrive. Did I
mention that this would be exactly the time for all of the
kids, Nancy, and myself to get hit by the winter cold
epidemic?

Hacking:

See above. The sudden attack of Real Life(tm) has left
precious little hacking time. I did get started on the goat book
("GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool"), which is a
fantastic resource for what is truly a black art.
Now I just need to finish and get my hands dirty doing some
autoconfiscating/libtoolizing.